KARMA l89

of them all as it only slightly affects the Inner Man directly.
Actions are effects of our past thinking and desires, and their
karma is for the most part exhausted in their happening,
though they affect us indirectly by giving rise to fresh
thoughts and desires. The spinning of this thread brings
into our destiny outward happiness or outward misery.
As a man has made people physically happy or physically
miserable, so will he reap karmically from his action
favourable or unfavourable physical circumstances, con-
ducive to physical happiness or physical suffering. His
nearest circumstance, the expression of his past activity,
is his physical body, and this is shaped for him according
to the mould of the etheric double, as explained before.
Wisdom in the present life is the result of experiences in
past lives, while conscience is similarly built of painful
experiences in the past.

Thus the reaction of our thoughts on ourselves is
the building of character and of faculties ; the reaction of
desires on ourselves is the gaining of opportunities, of
objects and of power, making us (lucky ' or * unlucky ) as
the case may be; the reaction of our activities on our-
selves is our environment, the conditions and circum-
stances, the friends and enemies that surround us. Two
parts of our karma we bring with us, our thought-nature
and desire-nature; the third part we are born into, our
environment, including our physical body.

We are what we are because of our past thoughts,
desires and actions, there being no favouritism in Nature.
With this idea properly grasped, envy and resentment
become impossible, and we cease the useless swearing at
fate. We reap in this life as we sowed in the past; as we
are now sowing, so shall we reap in the future ; and as we
are now spinning, so shall our cord of fate be for future